The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-03-04
MARRYING By PROXY.
The Present Social Outlook in Our Dis
tracted Country.


Bill Nye, in Boston Globe
With considerable leisure on hand this winter,
it has occurred to me that l might do we'll if
would attend to the proxy business of gentlemen
who may be engaged in the penitentiary indus
try. There can be no doubt that in a short tina
the disagreeable and irksome task of getting
married will be done wholly by proxy. and tna
man who will step in and attend to this matter
at living rates will have all he can attend
to. More especially will this new order of things
be boon to those who are taking classical
course at the pententiary, and who cannot get
away.
To be successful as a proxy under such cir
cumsfances, a man should be about my age,
height and general tout ensemble. eshould be
tall, dignlfied and self possessed and of good
posroffice address. He should be cool man;
one who would not change color if brass button
should burst off the rear breadth of his trous-
and fall to the floor, but calmly put his foot
on it. and, with chastened, far-away look, go
on with his lines.
Nature has fitted but few men to shine as prin-
cpals at their own matrimonial ceremonies.
Most of them have wild hunted look. or the
appearance of letharey and coma never saw
bnt one man who perfectly cool at such a
time, and 1t is now thought that he and his
wife lived unhapplly together, for, a few
months after their marriage, he worked
her up into trunk mystery, and
began his freshman year at the peptentiary.
He will be executed IN July, soon after the ami
versary of our Nations glorious natal day, and
riage-by proxy-of fair young girl who now
comes to his cell on Tuesdays and Frdays-his
reception days-bringing with her button.hole
bouquets of meek-eyed pansies and tall. tremu-
! lous lilies OF tho valley. and fragrant ginger
cookies. of which she is herself the author.
| All, love is strange thing, sometimes think,
| as / sit pensively by the dying freight with
my feet resting on the top of The upright piano.
is it not strange that the love OF sweet,
| young girl, with dewy eyes framed in tremu-
| lous light should 60 out cropping through
| the cold, dark world like the tendrils
of glorious yonng ivy only at last
| to catch on, as it were, and cling to a
| great, horrid man, whose only claim to public
recognition is the fact that he put facetious
| glass bomb under squad of policemen and tore
great holes into their bodiesl Is it not odd thai
| a young girl, born with rudimentary brains
| should at last seek out man who tomahawked
| his wife and after subdividins her poor re
| mains. threw her into Saratoga trunk in thai
| wild, chaotic manner that a man always affects
| in packing trunk, and checked her to a reno te
part Of the countryg Is it not strange say
| that such man in small musty cell, dressed
! in a coarse, streaked suit of penitentia seer
sucker, should, without effort, win the love
! and bouquets and pies of a glorious young be
| ing. while plain man, whose corneous hsnd:
! are absolutely destitute of human gore, can si
around half life time unloved?
am free to state. for one, that it makes me
| mad 1t SCENE to me just as ii great big
husky man, with a fair appetite, and prison
1
his strong arms, reaching out for slight eirlist
| figure, ID tight-ftting tailor-made clothes. tt
come and cling to him. while paie eccentric
| cuss IN Cell 205 with iumpy brow, and nat
| ural gift for impronp,u speaking from the gal
| lows, has to crawl under his wrought-iron bed
stead to keen young people of the opposite Sc,
from smotherins him with holyh and dough
| nuts that they made themselves.
| That is the present social outlook in our dis
tracted country. A man may win the respect Of
! this class of young women sometimes by wreck
| ing train, but i. will only be the devotion of
| friend. Should he pine for the love that swim:
| icy torrents and walks barefoot through venom
| Gus swamps and rears up on its hind feet and
| prances around in defiance of press, pulpit ani
| the revised statutes he must creep into public
school, sand bag the principal. suffocate the fe
male teachers with a blackboard eraser. ant
| butcher the primary department He will thet
be the beau Of the pen the masher of the jug, tn,
| pride of the eallows, and on the day of his exc
cution he will get mustache cup: